Wednesday, July 18, 2012

How am I myself plus my circumstance? If this plus were literally a plus I would
not have comprehended the math, for it, I, the essence of I, am not only who is
centered in me, but also the ever shifting, gliding, and complex entity with
all the delightful, scary and horrifying possibilities and realizings with whom
I am or have been bringing, or might in the future, meet and bring to life inside my
being.

How bring what to life? There is a brick in the wall outside
our back door. I am connecting that
brick with an actual person who put that brick there and secured it with
mortar, many years ago. His having put the brick there is the extent of my
knowing the big Who of him, but I do indeed know some other facts about
him. Or was she a Her? Probably a he, because women didn’t do that
kind of work many years ago, and Joy and I haven’t even had women do any work
on the outsides of the house. I know that the person was breathing, was beating
his heart, pumping his blood with it, and he was filtering his blood with his
kidneys, helping to clean his blood. I
could go on and on about what is true and what could come to mind about
him. He was once a baby thumping inside his
mother. I know that he and I have this
in common. I could even make up a fictional story about him, having to do with
his philosophy of life at age five. And I am standing on the grass that is
growing beneath my feet. Grass that some
actual person planted there. These
knowings are developing in me, curious in more ways than one. I am creating and
sharing with you these limited but expansible bits of connecting with my mind
and its searching spirit. And I find
myself asking how many put how many bricks where, and did they know that I
would be sitting here imagining, in a limited way, that years after the fact I
would have them in my heart, appreciating and enjoying imagining that they were
doing it for me? That is just one brick
that didn’t just shazam appear in the mason’s hand. Someone made the brick from what ever bricks
are made. How many of the neighboring
bricks were made by how many people? Are some of them still living? My point is that there is life and its spirit
in these imaginings. There is life and spirit in that brick and all the others,
from countless angles! They are particular examples, possibly boring to some,
appreciated and enjoyed by others, that I am happening upon through what I am
sharing with you, and incidentally, with myself!

I don’t stop with my skin.
That is my main point. And what is my meta-point, the point of my point?
What is the big deal about my I and my me not stopping with my skin? There is life in the connections I make.
Even the ones I just imagine. They are, to say the least, a rehearsing for
making actual ongoing and more deeply nurturing, healthy connections with you,
and my family, including ancestors and strangers and a praying mantis clinging
to our outside rear view mirror. And the family of armadillos that saunter
across the street in the pre-dawn, dead set on fishing for grubs in the pine
straw bordering the grass in our back yard. And the Tom Hanks character making
do with Wilson: Is that a healthy connection he is making with the bloody He
and the Him of that volleyball?

When I realize the possibilities that open up to me with
making my circumstance come alive, in how it and I interact and reverberate, I
have no longer any need to imagine myself better or worse than anyone else. I
don’t need to rise in a hierarchy. I don’t have to achieve anything in order to
be acceptable to myself. When I interact
with you my essential sense of who I am is not at stake. If our connecting is
healthy, then both of us are nurtured by it. Neither of us is cast away.

Moreover, we might be the little boy who was the first to
share his loaf and fish, use our music to breech and help take down the walls
of hatred of Jericho, bring the Lazarus back to life in our healthy dialogue of
shared memories, and not have to worry about the wine running low at the
wedding feast.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

I was running in the cemetery this afternoon, was at my
parents' and my mother's parents' graves a little before two P.M. I let my
attention focus on my breathing, but my mind wandered to why I was there this
time. It was to celebrate my humanity, my biology even, with my Collective
Conscious Breath at two o'clock. Warm and slightly cloudy. I always let my imagination take over while
in that sacred spot. I let them know why
I was there, what the Collective Conscious Breath is about. I have the idea that a significant part of
their Heavens are in me, in my mind, in whatever goodness they might have
instilled in me. Not only in me,but also in everyone they have loved. I
included them in that breath. I could imagine the happy sounds of their
breathing. I had to remind my
grandmother not to hyperventilate. I endowed the event with Holiness. I imagine myself with the authority to do
just that!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

My friend Shawn Puller had an extremely significant
experiencing of a particular idea a few days ago: The Collective Conscious Breath. You may find
understanding of his inspiration at his Facebook page. You might plan to participate; moreover you
might decide to spread it around, even all over the world if you have access to
contacts abroad!

What comes to my mind about the Collective Conscious Breath?
The word spirit and the words respire, admire, aspire, conspire and inspire
spring from the same root, what Carl Gustav Jung called the rhizome of the 1
million year old collective unconscious, which he spent most of his life making
us conscious of the importance of making conscious. It is still a work in
progress, both the concept and the grasping of it.

The Collective
Conscious Breath is not only a symbol; it is an actual collective activity
which can spark a further process: not only an end in itself, but also a means
toward the end of an animated collective loving and healthy universal mind, a Collective Spirit.

R. W. Emerson in his essay entitled Love said:

“For it is a fire that
kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a
wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms
and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all,
and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames.”

So, might we have other thoughts as we breathe together,
maybe even sneak in another breath? I
plan to start my mindfulness of my breath a couple of minutes or longer before
2:00 pm on the 26th of January, and treat each breath as though it
is the breath we are all anticipating! .
The idea that we are breathing together will influence and morph my breathing
into an interval of mindfulness meditation, which I already do on a regular
basis. Even in anticipation I can enjoy this coming event, the joy of being as
a part of something deeply meaningful and infinitely larger than I am, The Mysterium Tremendum of Rudolph Otto.

Even if we don’t capture the heart of everyone the first go
round, word of mouth will ensure that we will before long touch the strong
possibility of an all inclusive epidemic of trust, respect, goodwill, intimacy
and healthy judgment.